-Ladies and gentlemen, it is my honor to introduce
to you the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg!
[crowd cheering]
-He's got the name no one knows how to pronounce.
-To welcome Mayor Pete Buttigieg.
-Pete Buttigieg. -Mayor Pete Buttigieg!
-And yet, when you watch Pete Buttigieg
at his public appearances,
you do feel you already know him.
-Thank you. What a room.
This is fantastic.
-With his sincere manner, his scrubbed good looks,
his pressed white shirtsleeves all rolled up,
he strikes you as that smart kid
who sat in front of you in AP English
and who wanted so badly to be student council president.
-I'm running for President because of my sense of urgency
that our country might be running out of time.
-Now he wants to be President of the United States.
So I traveled to New Hampshire to see
how he goes over with the crowd and how well he works one.
-And can't wait to continue working with you
to deliver real solutions all the way to the nomination.
-Let's take a closer look at Pete Buttigieg the performer.
Mayor Pete is not large of build,
but there is something big about him --
the voice, for one thing.
-Freedom comes by way of education,
which is one reason we need a Secretary of Education
who believes in public education in our --
-It has the rich, soothing tones of a morning news anchor.
You can imagine drinking coffee to the sound.
-When we got folks choosing between whether
to buy prescription drugs or whether to buy groceries,
and the President's focus is on whether to buy Greenland,
we got a problem.
-He rarely raises the volume,
a projection perhaps self-conscious of quiet command.
Though his movement sometimes looks a little robotic,
he has the calming, confident demeanor
to match the vocal quality.
It all feels of a youthful, even Kennedy-esque piece.
-The word "values" is automatically a Republican
or a conservative -- Uh, is our questioner here?
-From Ruth Moreno? -There you go.
Great.
-He's lightning-quick on his feet,
especially in the question-and-answer portions
of his town halls and meet-and-greets.
-Under President Obama, unemployment --
it was like 10% when he came in, and he got it down to 5%.
This President got it from 5% to 4%, and he's like the rooster
who thinks he made the sun come up on that one point.
-He's sometimes overeager to show you how much he knows.
-Yes, it probably means a financial transactions tax.
Yes, it means higher marginal income tax rates.
We don't have to go back to the 90% --
-A function of both his intelligence
and an unfortunate reluctance to speak too much about himself.
Very occasionally, he'll add an anecdote tangentially.
-One time I was merging on a highway with my mom,
and I just --
She was in the TC seat of the vehicle,
so I just said, "Clear, right?"
And she looked at me like, "What?"
-Still, you wish he would drop the policy mask
and shed a bit more light on Pete the man,
not just the mayor.
Tell another story or two on yourself, Pete.
-Medicare-style -- -Mayor Pete draws crowds
of remarkable size.
Whether on a farm property in rural Hancock, New Hampshire,
or a town hall at a college in Nashua,
his audiences exude uncommon enthusiasm.
-Thank you! -Maybe because his quiet-spoken,
common-sense style is an antidote to so much
of the dispiriting noise of our time.
-So, all I have to ask is, can I look to you
to spread that sense of hope
and that sense of urgency -- -And maybe it is also about
the figure he cuts,
a figure out of a sober American play
like Thornton Wilder's "Our Town"?
-I'm pretty sure we got this, and I'll be working with you
every step of the way from here to there.
Thank you for your support, thank you for your involvement,
and thank you for caring about the future of this country.
And I will see you on the trail.
Thank you.